Brilliant Spring Color on a Snowy Winter Morning

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Good snowy morning to you. Thought I’d remind you that spring is just around the corner (ha!) by showing you three Satsuki azaleas from our New 2017 Bonsai Calendar. There’s a lot more where these came from. Twenty six specimen quality Japanese bonsai to be exact.

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NEW 2017 Bonsai Calendars Are Here!

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Stunning 2017 Bonsai Calendars

They’re here and they’re beautiful
The best we’ve seen in years

Enjoy 26 powerful Japanese bonsai

while you check the date all year long
on your beautiful new 2017 calendar
Next year you can cut off the dates
& enjoy beautiful wall hangings
30″ x 14″ – 13 pages – made in Japan

Order yours now during our
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It’s a perfect time for a

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Expertly Rendered & Beautiful

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This drawing is by Michele Andolfo, as are the others in this post.

We just gave you three straight brand new posts. Now I need to catch my breath and catch up with some new products (including several new Roshi bonsai tools) and as always, continue the heroic quest to subjugate the horrible email beast (100 plus emails a day can wear on you). Long story short, this post is from our archives. October, 2015.

All the drawings shown here are from a program Michele Andolfo led in Quebec this year (last year). You can view more of these expertly rendered and beautiful drawings and the bonsai material that inspired them here.

Continued below…

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Here's an example of a drawing and the tree that inspired it (below). Here's you link to view photos of all the trees (and some others) that go with the drawings shown here.

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The artist, Michele Andolfo

Taking the time to tune into Michele’s vision of what each tree might become, can help you envision what your own trees might become. It’s a click worth making;

Michele’s Andolfo Bonsai Studio is in Italy. But judging by the news on his website, he travels and teaches far and wide.

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More Broken Chains

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Just in case you missed our last two posts, here's another photo on the theme breaking through the chains that limit creativity.

Here’s our third and final post (for now at least) on the recent 3rd National Xiaopin Penjing & Wild Grass Exhibition. Photos courtesy of Robert Steven.

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World's longest cascade

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What's he doing?

 

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More broken chains...

Continued below…

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Wild grasses and moss on an impressive piece of driftwood

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The venue. Or at least, part of it

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Shohin display, Notice anything strange?

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Here it is. There must be a future design consideration (sacrifice branch?) for keep that strange shoot on the right, but normally you'd normally expect something like that to be removed for a show.

 

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Another closeup from the shohin photo above. A little fuzzy, but worth a try.

 

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Uncropped version of the photo at the top

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More Broken Chains & Blending Tradition Chinese Penjing with Something Much Newer & More Radical

today770Yesterday the chains were broken. Today it's the chains and the arm. It's a good thing the tree and pot survived. The photo is cropped so the nitty-gritty at the bottom will show when it's magically transported to social media (the original is below).

Yesterday, we featured some photos and text (courtesy of our friend Robert Steven) from the recent 3rd National Xiaopin Penjing & Wild Grass Exhibition. Today we’ve got some more for you (and even more tomorrow).

The more I look at the photos the more fascinated I become. The scope and variety and especially the concepts behind the whole thing; a blending of tradition Chinese penjing with something much newer and more radical. Robert Steven’s fertile mind at work.

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I don't think I've ever seen a Shohin display shaped like this.

 

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A gnarled gnarly little pine (Japanese black pine?).

Speaking of Pines…

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Our famous Pine book

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Here are some of those wild grasses that are mentioned in the Exhibition title.

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Is that another grape (see yesterday)? Only this time without fruit?

 

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Uncropped

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Breaking Bonsai Chains

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This highly unusual bonsai display (previously highly unusual anyway - thanks to Robert Steven and others, displays like this are becoming more common) is from 3rd National Xiaopin Penjing & Wild Grass Exhibition. In Roberts words: "The hands sculptures with the broken chains symbolize the theme of breaking through in creativity."

The other day Robert Steven sent us a whole slew of remarkable photos from the 3rd National Xiaopin Penjing & Wild Grass Exhibition along with text that helps shed some light on the nature of the Exhibition. We’ll show you the text in full (below) and just a few photos now, with more to follow soon.

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Looks like a traditional Shohin display, except a couple trees seem a little large for Shohin. I suspect this has to do with the display being Chinese, where Japanese guidelines don't carry as much weight as they might elsewhere.

The following is a document that Robert included with the photos:
“Zhongguo Feng 2016
3rd. National Xiaopin Penjing & Wild Grass Exhibition
“Break Through the Chinoiserie of Penjing Art”

3rd. Zhongguo Feng – 2016, similar to Kokufu of Japan, Huafeng of Taiwan was conducted in Shanghai Botanic Garden from 2nd – 5th October 2016 in concerts to the celebrating of China National Day.

Document continued below…

r1cI've always like bonsai with fruit and especially grapes... wine or table.

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Robert’s document, continued from above:
“This time, only Xiaopin Penjing (Shohin) was exhibited together with wild grass (Kusamono), specifically Ocarus grass which is now very popular in China and Korea.

Continued below…

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Here's another "breaking though" display.

Continued from above:
“At the main entrance, there was a unique display (created by Robert Steven as the Artistic Advisor of the event) symbolized the exhibition theme. The word (Feng in Chinese or “Fu” in Japanese) which mean “style” in Kokufu, Huafeng and Zhongguo Feng, also literally means “wind”. That’s why the display used the windy effect (plus sound and fogging) and emphasized with the windswept style bonsai, and the at the same time, the Chinese flag suggest the China National Day celeberation.”

Continued below…

 mainRobert Steven with his main entrance display. For a more dynamic version of this display, here's your link to view the video.

Continued from above:
“During the exhibition, there was also tea ceremony and classical Chinese music performance, bonsai and ceramic pots making demonstration.

Next year, 2017 Zhongguo Feng will be hosted by the International Garden of Rugao, China, sometimes in October 2017…”

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Tea ceremony

Once again, here’s your link to view the video

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Snake Skin Bonsai

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The contrast of black background and red leaves works to a tee. The tree is a Arakawa (Snake skin) Japanese maple that belows to Luis Vallejo. All three photos shown here are by Miguel Krause.

Just a quickie today while I continue to try to catch up from vacation (no good vacation goes unpunished). I found the photos on Luis Vallejo’s facebook feed. This is not the first time we’ve shown Luis’ bonsai and I don’t think it will be the last.

In addition to showing you the striking color contrast, I want to remind you that 4 excellent sales end tonight. Just in case you need some bonsai wire or you’d like to enhance your bonsai book collection (see below).

 

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Stunning red Japanese maple leaves against 'snakeskin' bark.

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Nature can be strikingly beautiful. In this case with a little help from some humans (Arakawa is a cultivar, like almost all Japanese maple varieties).

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Bonsai Book & Wire Sales End Monday Night

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Cover tree from Fine Bonsai (see below)

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B1FINE copy

The cover
The tree is a Sargent juniper (aka Shimpaku)
The artist is Seiji Morimae
The pot is by Adachi Choka
list price for the book is 150.00
only 107.00 with current sales
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full111 It’s east to see why we’ve featured this impressive
cascading Japanese black pine over the years
It’s from the Black pine gallery in our Masters’ Series Pine Book
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our discounted price 26.95
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Buttonwoods, Books & Bonsai Wire

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This powerfully compact Buttonwood belongs to Nacho Marin, as do all four Buttonwood bonsai shown here.

Continuing with yesterday’s Buttonwood theme, while we pack for our journey back to the real world…  all four trees shown belong to Nacho Marin and were featured on Bark in February, 2015.

With Buttonwoods it’s nature that does the real work. Humans find them, dig them, pot them and eliminate branches and other parts that distract from the natural beauty of the tree. But nature does the twisting, turning and scouring by sand and wind that results in such unusual shapes and magnificent deadwood.

Continued below…

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Nature's twisted handiwork.

Much of the shaping and scouring happens during hurricanes and tropical storms. I’ve even heard that Buttonwoods are sometimes violently uprooted and blown to new locations. When the storm settles they begin the process of reestablishing themselves. This could only happen in the tropics (see below) where humidity is high enough to keep the exposed roots from dying out.

Continued below…

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The tortured deadwood on the right was no doubt once a trunk.

Buttonwoods (Cornocapus erectus) are tropical trees that typically grow along coastlines. They are highly successful and have managed to spread throughout much of the tropical regions of the world: including southern Florida, the Caribbean, throughout the Central and South American coastal tropics, the Galapagos Islands, West Africa and Melanesia and Polynesia.

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Saving the best for last. All scrunched up and twisted at the bottom while soaring at the top. Nice pot too.

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Mystical Dragon and other American Tropical Jewels

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Rugged dynamic deadwood. It's a  Buttonwood by Robert Kempinski from his Mahogany Row Studio.

Today is our last full day of an all too short Florida Keys’ vacation. Tomorrow it’s back to the freezing North. Before we pull on our long pants and head out, this seems like a good time to take a look at some Florida Buttonwoods, our American tropical jewel.  The photos shown here and some of the text appeared almost exactly one year ago today. One of many Bark posts that feature Buttonwoods.

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This one belongs to Mary Madison. John Naka called her the Buttonwood Queen. The tree's name, Senru (Mystical Dragon) was also bestowed by Mr Naka, a man who in the course of long and illustrious life, displayed many talents (including naming). This photo and the story are from Bonsai Mary.

 

B1NAKA500

Speaking of John Naka
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ButtonwoodOne of our favorites. We've shown this now famous Buttonwood by Ed Trout several times over the years. The sad news about this beautiful tree is that it was stolen in 2008, and as far as I know, was never recovered.

 

JimSmithI found this monster by Jim Smith in the Of Bonsai Magazine. I couldn’t find any dimensions, but the article on Buttonwoods that accompanies the photo is very thorough. BTW: Jim Smith was an original American tropical bonsai guru.

 

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Mother Nature’s handiwork, with a little help from Robert Kempinski. From the Art of Bonsai Project.

 

This wild unique tree could only be a buttonwood. Also by Robert Kempinski from the Art of Bonsai Project.

 

They aren’t all small enough for bonsai. This photo is from Bonsai Mary. Though this one is exceptional, I've seen a few here on the Keys that might come in a close second.

 

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